[Pre-production] Storyboarding and pre-production lesson [WIP]

This lesson was was exactly what I felt I needed. Some of the main feedback on my latest video, Oddball was that I needed to work more on camera work and shot composition. Conveniently, we had a lesson focusing on just that, and I now have a lot more information to practice with.

STORYTELLING
We started up by looking at the basis of storytelling. The first thing we looked at was a three act structure, meaning a story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

STORYBOARD PURPOSE
Once a script is written, the storyboard comes into play. The storyboard is a working document that is meant to help visualize the project. It also plans out the stage direction and is constantly updated as the project goes along, until the final product is ready to be shot. We were showed the video below as an example of how much a storyboard can help get vision of a scene. This can also help a lot in pitching as running through the video and narrating it really helps give a sense of timing and sound, essentially making it a  live animatic.

The storyboards go through three stages in its life:

• A rough thumbnail showing the layout
• A first pass of the shot, tidied up from the thumbnail
• A rendered and tidier version that includes all the information needed for the crew to work from

The storyboard can be black and white rather than in colour. This helps in a studio as it can be photocopied easier and cheaper to be passed around to the crew. Colour can sometimes be important in storyboards for some shots, this will help background artists and also give indication on colour keys and lighting for the visual team. These are also best for clients as it's even clearer for them to envision how the video will play out.

STORYBOARD LAYOUT

Storyboards can have a variety of sizes and ratios, three standard sizes are 1.33.1, for a 4x3 ratio, 1.78.1 for a 16:9 widescreen ratio and 2.35:1 for an anamorphic scope. The width of the screen can really change the amount of information the viewer takes in on the screen, which leads onto the next part, TV cutoff guides.
Cutoff guides are there to help keep the action on screen in case the video is resized. There are title safe guides and action safe guides.

COMPOSTION AND SHOT TYPE

Composing with light
Selective focus
On a surface
Depth
Asymmetrical form
In line
In colour
Geometric shapes

RULE OF THIRDS

TYPES OF SHOT
Extreme long shot – wide shot
Long shot – Full shot
Medium Long shot – knee shot
Medium shot – waist shot
Close up – head shot
Extreme close up – detail shot

CAMERA ANGLES
Horizontal/eye level
Down shot
Up shot
Tilt shot
CAMERA MOVEMENT
Tracking in/out shot
Pan
Zoom
Zip pan
The shake
The tilt

180 RULE

DIRECTION
Each panel should have info.
Storyboard can be adapted
Transitions – changes in setting, time, narrative jumps
The cut – clean jump from one shot to another
The dissolve – fade in/out / cross dissolve
Effect transitions
Metamorphosis

FEATURE FILM ANIMATION
Always need storyboard – mass production – May take years
Colour key storyboards
TV series – budget/duration
Independent film makers may work without, still need a plan
Animated advert – client storyboard + working storyboard

THE ANIMATIC

Can be created in various ways
Bar sheets
Pipe line
Animatics and storyboards inc.